NEW ORLEANS -- On a sultry morning earlier this week, Ashton O'Dwyer stepped out of his home on this city's grandest street and made a beeline for his neighbor's pool. Wearing nothing but a pair of blue swim trunks and carrying two milk jugs, he drew enough pool water to flush the toilet in his home.

The mostly African-American neighborhoods of New Orleans are largely underwater, and the people who lived there have scattered across the country. But in many of the predominantly white and more affluent areas, streets are dry and passable. Gracious homes are mostly intact and powered by generators. Wednesday, officials reiterated that all residents must leave New Orleans, but it's still unclear how far they will go to enforce the order.

The green expanse of Audubon Park, in the city's Uptown area, has doubled in recent days as a heliport for the city's rich -- and a terminus for the small armies of private security guards who have been dispatched to keep the homes there safe and habitable. Mr. O'Dwyer has cellphone service and ice cubes to cool off his highballs in the evening. By Wednesday, the city water service even sprang to life, making the daily trips to his neighbor's pool unnecessary. A pair of oil-company engineers, dispatched by his son-in-law, delivered four cases of water, a box of delicacies including herring with mustard sauce and 15 gallons of generator gasoline.

Despite the disaster that has overwhelmed New Orleans, the city's monied, mostly white elite is hanging on and maneuvering to play a role in the recovery when the floodwaters of Katrina are gone. "New Orleans is ready to be rebuilt. Let's start right here," says Mr. O'Dwyer, standing in his expansive kitchen, next to a counter covered with a jumble of weaponry and electric wires.

More than a few people in Uptown, the fashionable district surrounding St. Charles Ave., have ancestors who arrived here in the 1700s. High society is still dominated by these old-line families, represented today by prominent figures such as former New Orleans Board of Trade President Thomas Westfeldt; Richard Freeman, scion of the family that long owned the city's Coca-Cola bottling plant; and William Boatner Reily, owner of a Louisiana coffee company. Their social pecking order is dictated by the mysterious hierarchy of "krewes," groups with hereditary membership that participate in the annual carnival leading up to Mardi Gras. In recent years, the city's most powerful business circles have expanded to include some newcomers and non-whites, such as Mayor Ray Nagin, the former Cox Communications executive elected in 2002.

A few blocks from Mr. O'Dwyer, in an exclusive gated community known as Audubon Place, is the home of James Reiss, descendent of an old-line Uptown family. He fled Hurricane Katrina just before the storm and returned soon afterward by private helicopter. Mr. Reiss became wealthy as a supplier of electronic systems to shipbuilders, and he serves in Mayor Nagin's administration as chairman of the city's Regional Transit Authority. When New Orleans descended into a spiral of looting and anarchy, Mr. Reiss helicoptered in an Israeli security company to guard his Audubon Place house and those of his neighbors.

He says he has been in contact with about 40 other New Orleans business leaders since the storm. Tomorrow, he says, he and some of those leaders plan to be in Dallas, meeting with Mr. Nagin to begin mapping out a future for the city.

The power elite of New Orleans -- whether they are still in the city or have moved temporarily to enclaves such as Destin, Fla., and Vail, Colo. -- insist the remade city won't simply restore the old order. New Orleans before the flood was burdened by a teeming underclass, substandard schools and a high crime rate. The city has few corporate headquarters.

The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."

Not every white business leader or prominent family supports that view. Some black leaders and their allies in New Orleans fear that it boils down to preventing large numbers of blacks from returning to the city and eliminating the African-American voting majority. Rep. William Jefferson, a sharecropper's son who was educated at Harvard and is currently serving his eighth term in Congress, points out that the evacuees from New Orleans already have been spread out across many states far from their old home and won't be able to afford to return. "This is an example of poor people forced to make choices because they don't have the money to do otherwise," Mr. Jefferson says.

Calvin Fayard, a wealthy white plaintiffs' lawyer who lives near Mr. O'Dwyer, says the mass evacuation could turn a Democratic stronghold into a Republican one. Mr. Fayard, a prominent Democratic fund-raiser, says tampering with the city's demographics means tampering with its unique culture and shouldn't be done. "People can't survive a year temporarily -- they'll go somewhere, get a job and never come back," he says.

Mr. Reiss acknowledges that shrinking parts of the city occupied by hardscrabble neighborhoods would inevitably result in fewer poor and African-American residents. But he says the electoral balance of the city wouldn't change significantly and that the business elite isn't trying to reverse the last 30 years of black political control. "We understand that African Americans have had a great deal of influence on the history of New Orleans," he says.

A key question will be the position of Mr. Nagin, who was elected with the support of the city's business leadership. He couldn't be reached Wednesday. Mr. Reiss says the mayor suggested the Dallas meeting and will likely attend when he goes there to visit his evacuated family

Black politicians have controlled City Hall here since the late 1970s, but the wealthy white families of New Orleans have never been fully eclipsed. Stuffing campaign coffers with donations, these families dominate the city's professional and executive classes, including the white-shoe law firms, engineering offices, and local shipping companies. White voters often act as a swing bloc, propelling blacks or Creoles into the city's top political jobs. That was the case with Mr. Nagin, who defeated another African American to win the mayoral election in 2002.

Creoles, as many mixed-race residents of New Orleans call themselves, dominate the city's white-collar and government ranks and tend to ally themselves with white voters on issues such as crime and education, while sharing many of the same social concerns as African-American voters. Though the flooding took a toll on many Creole neighborhoods, it's likely that Creoles will return to the city in fairly large numbers, since many of them have the means to do so.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Gary Fields and Ann Carrns contributed to this article.)

Thanks for posting that bruh.....good article........that's why I'm pushing my cousins to get their arses back down there to start handling the business of securing their family properties.....there are many folk from the poorer areas of the city that I've talked to like my cousin in LA and a couple of his boys that are our here now who say they're never going back ....except to visit ....too bad young Brothers don't listen to logic ...they don't get it that if they're not going back to supervise or at least check on their property that someone will and at some point imminent domain will come into effect and you wont' have anything to come back to.....like in South Mississippi now I was reading an article where folks mortgage payments are coming due as the bank has given them leeway up till Dec. but with payments coming due this month and folk still not working or still waiting on insurance claims and whatnot a lot of these properties are going to be going into foreclosure in the near future and then with property taxes coming due on some also...it's going to be interesting how the govt handles this but I think a lot of folk possibly even some of my own are on a path to losing some of this property down there......like I said I'm going to try to get a bit of it myself and maybe help some family members where I can but it's going to be a trip in the next 6 months to a year to see how this folds out....Imminent Domain is real....

Thanks again Brother Isaiah.......hope everything if good for you and yours up in the Big City Bruh....take care

Thanks for posting that bruh.....good article........that's why I'm pushing my cousins to get their arses back down there to start handling the business of securing their family properties.....there are many folk from the poorer areas of the city that I've talked to like my cousin in LA and a couple of his boys that are our here now who say they're never going back ....except to visit ....too bad young Brothers don't listen to logic ...they don't get it that if they're not going back to supervise or at least check on their property that someone will and at some point imminent domain will come into effect and you wont' have anything to come back to.....like in South Mississippi now I was reading an article where folks mortgage payments are coming due as the bank has given them leeway up till Dec. but with payments coming due this month and folk still not working or still waiting on insurance claims and whatnot a lot of these properties are going to be going into foreclosure in the near future and then with property taxes coming due on some also...it's going to be interesting how the govt handles this but I think a lot of folk possibly even some of my own are on a path to losing some of this property down there......like I said I'm going to try to get a bit of it myself and maybe help some family members where I can but it's going to be a trip in the next 6 months to a year to see how this folds out....Imminent Domain is real....

Thanks again Brother Isaiah.......hope everything if good for you and yours up in the Big City Bruh....take care

MississippiRed

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Brother Mississippi Red, how's the SOUL BROTHER feelin'?(smile!)

Seems we're the only ones, along with brother Omowale Jabali, interested in the hottest topic on Black America's plate at this time, but I'm gonna keep posting stuff, because our lives are depending on it... The happenings in the GULF COAST this past summer are impacting on every AFRICAN COMMUNITY in the United States, because it is putting AFRICANS in heavy COMPETITON with one another... Y'all know what that means, right???

Well,If we can't get along with one another on the streets of our cities with brothers we KNOW, then what happens when cats from another world away "invade" our space??? Have we considered that???

What happens to all of these families dispersed in a way not seen since like SLAVERY!!!! Come on, African People, sniff the java, here... We've got children who've not been located yet, where are they??? Are they on somebody's farm, being worked like slaves??? Have they been sold to some Arab shiek to become his eunuch or sex slave??? Child Pornography, maybe, has that become their fate???

And, of course, the loss of our land and property will devastate us as a people... We will be relegated to being a race of renters, with no liguifiable assets to our name... We were already behind in that game, a people discrimminated against by our own government, which put out manuals on how to redline our communities...

Mississippi, I am elated that you bring your experience and knowledge to these threads, because it makes me realize more clearly, that KATRINA impacted on 90,000 miles of GULF COAST real estate... AFricans in Mississippi were heavily impacted by this natural disaster, and they don't get any pub... That's a crime, man...and you've made us aware of that inconsistency...

We need to stop all of this foolish talk about who is and aint black, and forget about it if you don't know yet, because it's costing us valuable time, energy, and resources... Like our land is one of greatest resources, and yes, imminent domain is chomping at the fangs to take it away on a pretext... Keep keeping us informed, brother Mississippi Red, because a few of us are listening most intently...

ATLANTA - Barbara Bonseigneur looked to her hometown mayor Saturday for a reason to return to New Orleans and help rebuild the battered city and home she fled ahead of Hurricane Katrina. She didn't get one.

"There is nowhere to buy food or get gas. It's chaotic," said Bonseigneur, 50. "Bringing us back to living in poverty is not a new beginning. How can a city that's broke help New Orleans rebuild?"

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin spoke in Atlanta and pleaded with his former constituents to come home. While most in the frustrated crowd said they were eager to do so, the same question kept coming up: "Home to what?"

"I love my home. That's my roots, but I don't know if I'll be able to return," said Jerrelyn Verrett.

Though she has returned to New Orleans three times since Katrina, Verrett said respiratory problems have kept her from inspecting her home in Gentilly Woods, near Lake Ponchartrain. She said her neighborhood has flooded 10 times since she moved there 37 years ago, and she had little confidence it could or would be protected from future flooding.

Verrett was one of the calmer speakers at Saturday's two-hour meeting — shorter than similar meetings Nagin held in Houston and Memphis in recent weeks. Many former New Orleans residents now living in the Atlanta area yelled questions at Nagin, and were angry when he did not have the answers or the authority they were looking for.

Betty Gaynor says she is leaving Atlanta — for Houston, not New Orleans. The 65-year-old chastised Nagin, who is from her neighborhood in the 6th Ward, for allowing Mardi Gras to be held this coming February.

"Why would he have Carnival? Carnival is mostly for the white folks," she muttered.

During the two-hour town hall meeting, Nagin told the crowd of more than 2,000 that he was working for a better New Orleans, including stronger levees, economic opportunity for citizens, restoration of utilities and an improved education system.

"The Big Easy is not very easy right now," he said, predicting that citizens who return would be in for six months of hard work before the city experiences a five or 10 year construction boom.

Nagin encouraged residents to begin the rebuilding process on their properties and to voice their concerns to legislators.

Bonseigneur, who works for an insurance company, said she cannot seem to make any progress toward getting her home there rebuilt. After the town hall meeting, she headed back to New Orleans for an eighth time to meet inspectors.

To James Anthony, New Orleans has looked like a ghost town the three times he has gone back to visit his home in New Orleans East. Splitting two rooms with his wife, two children and two grandchildren in Atlanta is better than going back, he said.

"I feel like he's coming down here to say he's doing something," he said of Nagin, "but this is more of a ploy to get the workers to come back."

Seems we're the only ones, along with brother Omowale Jabali, interested in the hottest topic on Black America's plate at this time, but I'm gonna keep posting stuff, because our lives are depending on it... The happenings in the GULF COAST this past summer are impacting on every AFRICAN COMMUNITY in the United States, because it is putting AFRICANS in heavy COMPETITON with one another... Y'all know what that means, right???

Well,If we can't get along with one another on the streets of our cities with brothers we KNOW, then what happens when cats from another world away "invade" our space??? Have we considered that???

What happens to all of these families dispersed in a way not seen since like SLAVERY!!!! Come on, African People, sniff the java, here... We've got children who've not been located yet, where are they??? Are they on somebody's farm, being worked like slaves??? Have they been sold to some Arab shiek to become his eunuch or sex slave??? Child Pornography, maybe, has that become their fate???

And, of course, the loss of our land and property will devastate us as a people... We will be relegated to being a race of renters, with no liguifiable assets to our name... We were already behind in that game, a people discrimminated against by our own government, which put out manuals on how to redline our communities...

Mississippi, I am elated that you bring your experience and knowledge to these threads, because it makes me realize more clearly, that KATRINA impacted on 90,000 miles of GULF COAST real estate... AFricans in Mississippi were heavily impacted by this natural disaster, and they don't get any pub... That's a crime, man...and you've made us aware of that inconsistency...

We need to stop all of this foolish talk about who is and aint black, and forget about it if you don't know yet, because it's costing us valuable time, energy, and resources... Like our land is one of greatest resources, and yes, imminent domain is chomping at the fangs to take it away on a pretext... Keep keeping us informed, brother Mississippi Red, because a few of us are listening most intently...

Peace!
isaiah

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Brothers,

I am keeping an eye on this situation and looking into the possibility of buying some of those properties that go into foreclosure or tax lein and I guarantee there are some white folks losing properties as well.

My interest is due to a long family history in NOLA dating from the 1700's to present. My folks are one of those "Creole" families they talk about and I think that there continues to be much confusion with divides "Creoles" from other African-Americans.

Many "Creole" families are BLACK and multi-racial families who inhabitied NOLA prior to Statehood, were considered "Free Persons of Color" and were disposessed of properties after the Louisiana Purchase.

Eventually, many "Creoles" intermarried with english-speaking Blacks and there is amixed-heritage among many families and most Black "Creoles" identify with African-Americans and the history and culture expressed in the arts (jazz, zydeco) religion (vodun, yoruba) contains many "Africanisms" that are stronger than most parts of america as evidenced in the history of Congo Square and Chez Vodun.

Most of my family migrated to Chicago and Los Angeles, and later Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Lake Charles and Atlanta, just to name a few. Because of the adject porverty and high crime rates many will never return "home" as their families are doing better in other areas.

Myself, I view the situation as a great investment opportunity to be part of rebuilding a city with a long cultural heritage because it makes no sense allowing white people alone to "turn a profit". Same with areas such as Pascagoula, Biloxi and Mobile Bay.

In the future, these areas are going to be LUXURY spots with casinos and cruise lines bringing in tourists and mega-bucks. East Bank properties in the Quarter are 200 years old and worth millions in some instances. High end lease properties for business and props converted into duplexes and triplexes with minimal square footage but going for ridiculous prices.

I know I am late in making a move myself but I am waiting to time my move and need time to settle in my new home first.

Other than as an investment opportunity, I just need to make sure that my remaining elders are safe and that my ancestors buried in Mt. Olivet cemetery are in tact and hornored properly.

Building A Global e-Networking Community Focusing on Black Genealogy/Family History and the Cultural/Spiritual Traditions of African people worldwide. EWOSA Village @facebook.com. Follow my blog at http://blkrootsworker.blogspot.com/?m=1

I am keeping an eye on this situation and looking into the possibility of buying some of those properties that go into foreclosure or tax lein and I guarantee there are some white folks losing properties as well.

My interest is due to a long family history in NOLA dating from the 1700's to present. My folks are one of those "Creole" families they talk about and I think that there continues to be much confusion with divides "Creoles" from other African-Americans.

Many "Creole" families are BLACK and multi-racial families who inhabitied NOLA prior to Statehood, were considered "Free Persons of Color" and were disposessed of properties after the Louisiana Purchase.

Eventually, many "Creoles" intermarried with english-speaking Blacks and there is amixed-heritage among many families and most Black "Creoles" identify with African-Americans and the history and culture expressed in the arts (jazz, zydeco) religion (vodun, yoruba) contains many "Africanisms" that are stronger than most parts of america as evidenced in the history of Congo Square and Chez Vodun.

Most of my family migrated to Chicago and Los Angeles, and later Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Lake Charles and Atlanta, just to name a few. Because of the adject porverty and high crime rates many will never return "home" as their families are doing better in other areas.

Myself, I view the situation as a great investment opportunity to be part of rebuilding a city with a long cultural heritage because it makes no sense allowing white people alone to "turn a profit". Same with areas such as Pascagoula, Biloxi and Mobile Bay.

In the future, these areas are going to be LUXURY spots with casinos and cruise lines bringing in tourists and mega-bucks. East Bank properties in the Quarter are 200 years old and worth millions in some instances. High end lease properties for business and props converted into duplexes and triplexes with minimal square footage but going for ridiculous prices.

I know I am late in making a move myself but I am waiting to time my move and need time to settle in my new home first.

Other than as an investment opportunity, I just need to make sure that my remaining elders are safe and that my ancestors buried in Mt. Olivet cemetery are in tact and hornored properly.

Click to expand...

How's my other SOUL BROTHER, OMOWALE JABALI, this morining?!(smile!)

Brother, your clarity on this, and many other issues is encouraging to me, and many others... I knew back in early Septiembre that this was a natural disaster for ALL PEOPLES OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN THE UNITED STATES, and as so happens, when AFRICAN AMERICANS are impacted negatively, the country is impacted NEGATIVELY, quiet as that is kept...(smile!)

We've got at least 45-50-million Africans in this country - despite what census tracts say - and we are faced with having to take care of other family members, now, on meager, just-above-the-poverty-line salaries... What does that do to us as a people??? Again, desparate people will do desparate things... That is what we are faced with now, and we've got to get on the ball... It's a good thing, however, that has come out of this cloud of despair... We now are going to find out just how interconnected we all are - for better or worse... It's called UNITY, for those who are into that sort of thing(smile!) I've another article in the Continuing Series, so to speak(smile!) Hope you guys enjoy the reading...

Posted on Fri, Oct. 07, 2005

Residents of Ninth Ward insist neighborhood be rebuilt

BY MIRIAM HILL, KIM HONE-MCMAHAN AND DWIGHT OTT

Knight Ridder Newspapers
NEW ORLEANS - (KRT) - Three times in the past 40 years, hurricanes have flooded this city's Lower Ninth Ward. And three times, the generations of blacks who called it home have vowed to rebuild.

Federal officials and others have questioned the wisdom of rebuilding in this and other low-lying areas. They say New Orleans needs instead to renew the system of wetlands that protected the city against flooding in previous generations. That would mean allowing much of the Ninth Ward and other low-lying areas to return to marshland.

Ninth Ward residents say their neighborhood instead should be reconstructed to withstand storms.

"You get homesick," said Louise Brumfield, as she returned to the Lower Ninth Ward for the first time Thursday. "The people we've been seeing here, they are so happy to be back, even with it looking like this."

She and her sister, Tierza Gray, surveyed acres of houses blown off foundations or shattered into giant piles of pickup sticks.

"That's my house. It was once there," Gray said, pointing. "Now, it's across the street."

Her house had landed on top of a maroon Nissan.

"It looks like the `Wizard of Oz,''' Brumfield said. Their 16-year-old nephew, Paul Adams, donned a breathing mask, broke a window and crawled inside Gray's house. He retrieved a few family photos, the faces obscured beyond recognition by mold.

When they hear talk of bulldozing the Ninth Ward, they can't help but see it as racially and economically motivated. By reputation, the area was a crime-ridden, poor, black slum. In reality, they say, it was home to many working-class families like their own. Every Sunday, relatives from all over the city would flock to Gray's house in the Lower Ninth, go to church and spend the day eating and talking.

The sisters and others in the community have expressed suspicion that government officials may have intentionally broken the levee to flood the Ninth Ward to save wealthier parts of New Orleans. The Industrial Canal levee broke in about the same place during the one-two punch of hurricanes Katrina and Rita as it had in Hurricane Betsy in 1965, when the Lower Ninth also was devastated.

"Most of us down there believed the Army Corps of Engineers deliberately blew that levee (during Betsy)," said Henry Julien, a lawyer who grew up in the Ninth Ward but lives now in Uptown. With those rumors circulating, the Army Corps repeatedly has denied that the levees purposely were broken.

There was precedent though. In 1927, New Orleans city leaders made a deal with residents of St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes. They broke a levee to flood those areas and save New Orleans, promising payment to residents of the parishes. City leaders later reneged on the promise.

That history resonates beyond the Ninth Ward. St. Bernard residents, who are mostly white and whose homes Katrina destroyed, also complain that they are being neglected while the world focuses on rebuilding New Orleans.

Craig Colten, geography professor at Louisiana State University, said the debate over the Lower Ninth has missed the real question.

"I don't think we should make any decisions based on race or class in rebuilding the Ninth Ward," he said. "I think we need to look at New Orleans as a whole and look at the lowest areas - the areas that would be hit the hardest in any future flood - and think about converting those to green spaces, to wetlands, to flood retention basins, so that waters can stand in those areas without damaging property in the future."

That includes looking at whether St. Bernard Parish should be rebuilt, he said.

But history makes class and race all but impossible to ignore, especially in the Lower Ninth.

After World War II, the Ninth Ward became a haven in racially divided New Orleans for black veterans who for the first time became homeowners. Norman Rockwell's famous painting of a young black girl escorted to school by federal marshals was inspired by 1960 school integration here. The Black Panthers in the 1960s and 1970s operated from the ward's Desire housing development, sometimes engaging in shootouts with local police.

Last month, federal Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson raised hackles when he said he didn't know whether the Ninth Ward should be rebuilt because of its precarious geography.

State Rep. Charmaine Marchand, who lives in the Lower Ninth and represents it in Baton Rouge, disagrees. She thinks the land and houses can be raised to protect the Lower Ninth from future storms.

"There is no debate," she said. "It's going to be rebuilt. There are people that have insurance that can rebuild their homes without the government. We have 54 percent home ownership down there."

Thanks again for keeping this subject alive. I am glad that it mentions the fact that the predominately white St. Bernard's parish is also being considered inhabitable. As you pointed out before, as low-income and poverty striken newscasters say the Ninth was, the per capita income was HIGHER than the white folk in St. Bernard's, which was considered a higher lcass neighborhoood. Figure that. My folks lived mostly in the 7th Ward/East End. Parts of the End were underwater as well with many properties destroyed by mold infestation. Man, this is why I'm waiting a few months. Snakes and mold. Not a good combination. At least the temperature in NOLA is still relatively warm so I might actually make my trip when my daughter comes to visit in January. I am scouting properties in the area and looking at some rental properties and my family thinks I'm crazy. As the article ended "We have 54 percent home ownership down there."

That is higher than most predominately Black communities. You know that folks gonna get paid that owned section 8 property. Other folks will be there as well. No matter how much the media talks about how scattered folks are, Baton Rouge took in several thousand. Ray Nagin is on the news appealing to folks as I write. Black folks do need to pull together and forget about government assistance. I put this meaasge out to all who talk about Black Nation Building...it's time to put up or STFU!

Building A Global e-Networking Community Focusing on Black Genealogy/Family History and the Cultural/Spiritual Traditions of African people worldwide. EWOSA Village @facebook.com. Follow my blog at http://blkrootsworker.blogspot.com/?m=1

Building A Global e-Networking Community Focusing on Black Genealogy/Family History and the Cultural/Spiritual Traditions of African people worldwide. EWOSA Village @facebook.com. Follow my blog at http://blkrootsworker.blogspot.com/?m=1

Thank yall brothers for keeping this in folks minds......."Seems we're the only ones, along with brother Omowale Jabali, interested in the hottest topic on Black America's plate at this time",.....Sadly Isaiah I think this statement is very very true.......Outside the regions closely affected by this tragedy most Black folk just don't seem to care.....

omowalejabali you have family in Baton Rouge....I'm from Natchez a town in Mississippi that's about 90 miles from BR ..small world indeed...Isaiah I appreciate these posts on what's happening down there bruh because more Black folks need to watch how this unfolds not because we want sympathy or anything but to learn a lesson for when the disaster happens again but somewhere else....and you have to make these decisions whether to shut it down sell the house your family has owned for 40 to 100 years and move into an apartment 1500 miles away or come back and rebuild not only your home but your community, whether you sit back and watch White folk swoop in and buy up what used to be thriving Black communities and push us out of areas we have dominated for years or do you take a trip scout some properties and pick up what you can pick up to keep our community strong.....

and don't think that White folk and the govt isn't watching to see how we react to this....they're testing the boundaries now...seeing just how far we will let them go just what will we let them take and how easy will it be to displace us next time....